


Morioh Mile

by Morioh-Cho-Radio (crimsonherbarium)



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies), ジョジョの奇妙な冒険 | JoJo no Kimyou na Bouken | JoJo's Bizarre Adventure
Genre: Akira and Terunosuke are the research team you can imagine what a disaster that is, Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, Alternate Universe - Stands Still Exist (JoJo), Canon-Typical Violence, Developing Relationship, Jaeger Pilots, Jaegers (Pacific Rim), JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Part 4: Diamond is Unbreakable, Kaiju (Pacific Rim), M/M, Morioh (JoJo), Nijimura Keichou Dies, Nijimura Okuyasu-centric, Nijumura Okuyasu Deserves Love, Pan Pacific Defense Corps, Slow Burn, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, Stand Users (JoJo) as Jaeger Pilots, Stands (JoJo) as Jaegers (Pacific Rim), The Drift (Pacific Rim), as slow as the plot will allow anyway, ish, it's PacRim but it's DIU okay, the universes are surprisingly compatible
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-07
Updated: 2020-02-10
Packaged: 2021-02-24 16:21:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21700867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crimsonherbarium/pseuds/Morioh-Cho-Radio
Summary: The world is under siege.The enemy emerges from a dimensional rift deep under the Pacific Ocean in the form of gargantuan monsters hell-bent on destroying everything in their path: the Kaiju. Humanity's only chance for survival exists in the form of their own monsters: enormous weapons called Jaegers and the stand users who pilot them. They are the last line of defense between the world and complete annihilation.In the darkest days of the kaiju war, disgraced pilot Okuyasu Nijimura and rookie Josuke Higashikata may just be the Pan Pacific Defense Corps' last chance to end things once and for all.
Relationships: Higashikata Josuke (JoJo: Diamond is Unbreakable) & Joseph Joestar, Higashikata Josuke (JoJo: Diamond is Unbreakable)/Nijimura Okuyasu, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 42
Collections: Discord Community Archive, JoJo Sailing





	1. The Nijimura Brothers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta read by the amazing [Mystic_Harley](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mystic_harley)!

The shrieking of a klaxon shattered the pre-dawn quiet.

Okuyasu Nijimura groaned and swung his legs over the edge of his bunk, rubbing his eyes blearily as orange emergency lighting flickered on overhead. A screen set into the wall opposite flashed, queuing up a mission readout.

**—Movement in the breach—** a cool, computerized voice read out. **—One signature. Category three kaiju. Codename: Red Hot Chili Pepper. On vector for Anchorage. Anticipated to make landfall in three hours—**

“Category three? Shit!” Okuyasu jumped out of bed, suddenly feeling much more awake. He kicked at the sleeping form in the bunk below and dodged the reflex punch he received in return. “Wake up, bro!”

“Fuck off.” Keicho Nijimura sat up nonetheless, yawning widely and ruffling a hand through his blond hair. “What’ve we got?”

“Cat-three kaiju.” Okuyasu grinned, yanking on his jumpsuit. “Maybe the biggest ever. Suit up, we’re on deck.”

“I don’t need you to tell me how to do my job,” Keicho retorted.

There was a loud banging on their door. “Up and at ‘em, Nijimuras!” a voice yelled on the other side. “We’re launching in fifteen.”

Okuyasu finished zipping up his jumpsuit and held out a hand to Keicho. “C’mon, bro. Let’s kick some kaiju ass!”

Keicho rolled his eyes, but took it and let Okuyasu pull him to his feet. He rifled through the closet for his own jumpsuit while Okuyasu splashed cold water on his face and slicked back his hair.

Two minutes later, both of them were suited up and ready to go. Okuyasu paused at the door, touching his fingers to the picture of their mother and father that was taped to the bulkhead. He took a deep breath and sighed it out, gritting his teeth.

Keicho laid a hand on his shoulder. “Let’s do this.”

“Right.” 

The two of them stepped out together into the chaos of the corridor.

~~~~~~

Jaegers.

Monster hunters. Giant machines purpose-built to fight back the kaiju threat and defend humanity. No other weapon the military had at its disposal even began to come close to the destructive power of a jaeger with a good team of pilots at the helm.

The program had been a last-ditch effort. When the first kaiju to come through the breach made land in San Francisco, the world was changed forever. Thousands of people died. Whole cities were destroyed. The entire world mourned.

And then came a second attack.

And a third.

The world’s best and brightest scientific minds came together and devised a plan for defense. The jaeger program had initially been conceived as drones piloted by AI, but the technology just wasn’t there yet. Artificial intelligence had improved in leaps and bounds in recent years, but it was still nowhere near where it needed to be to autonomously operate something like a jaeger and win. The program needed human pilots.

That presented its own challenges. The neural interface between a pilot and a full-sized jaeger proved to be too much strain for a single person. After dozens of failed experiments, a solution was finally implemented.

Two pilots. Left hemisphere, right hemisphere. Two minds, interfacing with each other through a neural link termed “the drift” by the first crew to use it successfully.

Okuyasu Nijimura wasn’t the smartest guy in the world. He’d never gotten the best grades in school. He often got into fights, and he tended to act based on his emotions without stopping to think about the consequences. He was hardly the picture of a hero. But he did have one unique, invaluable skill that made him perfectly suited to piloting a jaeger.

He had stand potential.

It was still anyone’s guess as to why stand abilities awoke in some people but not others. Some researchers had hypothesized that the potential to manifest a stand was related to the strength of a person’s mind. Others suggested that stand abilities were a latent effect of a virus that “rewired” the brains of those it infected. The truth was anyone’s guess; the nature of stands themselves made them difficult to research. Each ability was unique to the user, and they manifested in wildly different ways.

Regardless of the cause, it was a fact that only stand users were capable of submitting to the drift without taking heavy neural damage from the interface. The jaeger program recruited as many as they could get their hands on, and that included Okuyasu and his older brother Keicho. Most of the rangers and J-tech staff in the PDCC’s employ were stand users these days, even the ones who had never set foot in a jaeger and likely never would.

The drift wasn’t an easy thing to get accustomed to. From the moment the neural handshake was initiated, each pilot had full access to the other’s mind and memories. They merged through the body of their jaeger, becoming a single will. It took more than just stand potential to make something like that successful. It took physical compatibility. An emotional connection. The deeper the bond, the stronger the handshake, the better the pilots.

The Nijimura brothers’ parents had both been killed in one of the early attacks on Sendai. By the time the Japanese military had finally brought the kaiju down, half the city had been razed to the ground. Amongst the mountains of rubble and fires streaming oily smoke up into the sky had been the ruins of the Nijimura family home.

Okuyasu was four years old.

Keicho was only seven, but he had assumed the role of parent nonetheless, taking care of Okuyasu as they bounced around the foster care system for the next eleven years. He was often harsh or even cruel to his younger brother, but Okuyasu knew in his heart that it was because Keicho cared. He was trying to protect him. They were all each other had left.

The very instant he was old enough to volunteer, Okuyasu and Keicho Nijimura both enlisted in the Pan Pacific Defense Corps. Okuyasu served not out of a sense of duty, nor for fame and glory, though there was plenty of that for jaeger pilots these days. It was a thirst for revenge that drove him. A fundamental desire to face down the monsters that had taken his family away from him and beat them into a bloody pulp with his bare hands.

He’d gotten pretty good at it.

Together, Okuyasu and Keicho piloted a Mark-3 jaeger, fondly termed “The Hand,” after Okuyasu’s stand ability. It was hardly the newest or the most powerful machine the PPDC had at its disposal, but the brothers’ combined fighting skill made up for what their ride lacked in force. In their current posting just off the coast of Anchorage, they’d taken down four category three kaiju in as many years with no loss of life.

Okuyasu stood on the right side of the conn pod, arms at his side, as a crew of techs bolted a series of white armored plates to his dark blue jumpsuit one by one. One of them tossed him his helmet and he pulled it on, careful not to fuck up his hair in the process. Keicho did the same on his opposite side.

The techs attached the last piece—the backbone of the neural interface, a complex network of electrodes and palladium circuitry that sat over his spine—and Okuyasu squared his shoulders. He glanced at Keicho. “Let’s fuck this thing up.”

“Don’t get cocky,” Keicho said, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. “You’ll get us both killed.”

“Pilots secure,” one of the techs said into the intercom. “Sealing the pod now.”

The crew beat a hasty retreat, and the conn pod’s hatch sealed with a hydraulic hiss behind them. Okuyasu’s ears popped as the cabin pressurized.

_“Good morning, Nijimuras,”_ a voice crackled over the comm.

Okuyasu grinned. “Koichi! I thought you were on shore leave.”

_“I just got back last night. Guess my timing was good.”_

“Damn straight. Glad to have you backing us up.”

_“Just try not to make any extra paperwork for me this time—”_ Koichi broke off suddenly. _“Marshal on deck!”_

Marshal Joseph Joestar’s voice came through the speaker a moment later. _“Alright boys, you know the drill. Chili Pepper is on vector for Anchorage. Intercept it at the miracle mile and eliminate it before it can make land.”_

“Yes sir!” Keicho and Okuyasu chorused.

_“Mr. Hirose—engage for drop.”_

_“Dropping the pod.”_ Koichi’s voice was accompanied by a flash of warning lights on the console. _“Everybody hold on to something.”_

The brakes suspending the conn pod released with a metallic thunk, and the entire thing lurched and plummeted.

“Yeah!” Okuyasu yelled, punching the air.

The ten-story drop felt almost like flying. He loved this part—the leap before the fall. Adrenaline thrummed through him like electricity as the pod hurtled downward, slowing just before it crashed into the body of the jaeger waiting below. Hydraulic couplings hissed and clicked the pod rotated and locked into place.

_“Pilots secure, Marshal.”_

_“Good,”_ Marshal Joestar said. _“Gentlemen, you have your orders. Hold the miracle mile at all costs. Mr. Hirose, initiate the drift.”_

**—Pilot-to-Pilot connection sequence ready—** the AI said coolly.

_“Initiating neural handshake in ten…”_ Koichi’s voice was accompanied by the sound of his fingers rapidly hitting keys on his console. _“Nine…eight…”_

“Remember to use your head,” Keicho said with a warning glance at Okuyasu. “You follow my lead.”

“Always do, bro.”

_“Three…two…one…”_

** —Neural handshake. Initiate— **

No matter how many times Okuyasu entered the drift, the initial flood of feedback from the jaeger and Keicho’s brain always jolted him off-balance. Everything was suddenly so _loud_. Thoughts that weren’t his echoed around the inside of his skull. Memories seen from the wrong angle. Sendai. Mom. Dad…

Okuyasu came back to himself with a gasp. He blinked, adjusting to seeing everything with two sets of eyes.

**—Neural handshake successful—** the AI announced. **—Left hemisphere—calibrated. Right hemisphere—calibrating—**

Okuyasu made a fist with his right hand, feeling the weight of tons of metal shifting as the jaeger mirrored his movements. He grinned. There was something undeniably exhilarating about wielding this kind of power. He could hold his own in a fight, but he was just one man. The drift made him into something greater than himself. His strength. Keicho’s brains. The sheer force of two thousand tons of steel beneath him. He felt like he could fight a typhoon and win.

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Keicho said, shooting him a sidelong glance. Okuyasu heard the words in his head a split second before Keicho said them out loud. “Job first. Then celebrate.”

“You got it, bro.” Okuyasu turned to him and raised an eyebrow. “Let’s do it?”

The hint of a smile crossed Keicho’s lips. The two of them raised their hands in tandem and brought them together. Metal shrieked as The Hand punched its open left palm with its fist. The boom of steel impacting steel echoed through the entire launch bay.

The jaeger jolted under them as the platform it sat on began to roll forward. It was _slow,_ agonizingly so. Okuyasu gritted his teeth, itching for the fight. They just had to get out the doors and into the water.

There was a hell of a storm whipping up outside. The arctic wind howled through the launch bay doors as they opened, bringing with it waves of vengeful seawater. They broke against The Hand’s chest like fists battering a cliff as the jaeger’s transport slowly rolled into the sea.

When they were submerged waist-deep in the ocean, Keicho reached out to tap the control panel and disengaged the transport. In unison, the two of them stepped forward, heavy machinery whirring and spinning beneath them, and The Hand moved with them. Rain lashed at the windows of the conn pod as they walked forward into the storm, slowly sinking beneath the waves.

~~~~~~

They reached the coast of Anchorage exactly on schedule. The kaiju signature, which had been a faint blip on the edge of The Hand’s instruments for the better part of the last hour, grew stronger with every step they took toward the shore. It abruptly changed course just as the conn pod broke the surface of the ocean a mile offshore, angling in their direction. It had noticed them.

Okuyasu grinned. Good.

Despite the arctic storm raging outside, it was oppressively hot in the pod. Between the solid armored plates attached to his jumpsuit, the physical exertion it took to move the jaeger even one step forward, and the sheer amount of heavy machinery they were standing on top of, it was a miracle it wasn’t worse. A bead of sweat dripped down Okuyasu’s forehead and into his eyes, and he struggled to blink it away.

“Focus,” Keicho barked. “It’s not enough to have won a fight before. I don’t care if you’ve done four drops or four hundred. The kaiju keep getting stronger with every attack. We have to do the same. Only those who continue to grow are worthy of surviving.”

“R-right.” Okuyasu scanned the instruments. “Signature’s there, but I can’t see a damn thing—”

A thought and a shout at the same time. “On our right!”

The kaiju erupted from the sea like a mountain. It was close—shit, how had it gotten so close? It was practically on fucking top of them. Even with zero visibility Okuyasu could see it clearly. It was an ugly son of a bitch—not that kaiju tended to be pretty—with an enormous domed cranium and a long snout that looked almost like a beak. Its limbs were spindly and disproportionate to its hulking body. Its leathery skin had a sickly yellow undertone.

Okuyasu’s lip curled in disgust. So this was Red Hot Chili Pepper, huh? He smirked. Soon enough it would be their fifth kill.

The kaiju opened its beak and roared. Gobs of spittle larger than full-grown men flecked the conn pod’s windows as the sound reverberated through the jaeger’s machinery. Through the ooze Okuyasu could see the inside of its mouth, lined with rows upon rows of razor sharp teeth.

Keicho’s voice in his head. _Remember, Okuyasu. Methodical._

_Right._

The two of them grunted in unison as they pulled back The Hand’s right arm and swung it at the kaiju’s face.

The blow impacted it square in the mouth. Its roar descended into a strangled cry as it swatted at them blindly. Okuyasu and Keicho managed to bring their left arm up in time and block its claws just shy of the conn pod. They pushed back hard, knocking the lumbering beast off-balance on its skinny legs and sending it tumbling backward into the sea.

Waves crashed around the kaiju as it fell into the water with the force of a calving iceberg. It roared again, scrambling to get back to its feet, as the Nijimuras raised their hands over their heads and brought them down on its skull like a sledgehammer.

The kaiju sank beneath the waves.

“Shit—is it dead?” Okuyasu looked around frantically, scanning the instruments and coming up blank.

A flash of concern from Keicho. “Just stunned, I think. Where the hell did it go?”

The only good kaiju was a dead kaiju, but Okuyasu knew damn well that the second best thing was one that was alive and pissed off. Pissed off meant loud. Loud meant easy to keep track of. Quiet was bad. There was no sign of the thing anywhere near them except for the electric blue blood staining the surface of the water.

“Come on,” he muttered under his breath, scanning the waves. “Come and get some, you son of a bitch—”

“Okuyasu!”

The signature on the instruments suddenly surged. The damn thing was right behind them—

“Shit!” Okuyasu yelled as the kaiju launched itself at them with a roar of mixed pain and rage. He and Keicho turned as quickly as the jaeger would allow, grunting with the effort, struggling to get their arms up in time to block.

Not fast enough.

The kaiju opened its mouth and sank its teeth into The Hand’s left shoulder, tearing into hardened steel like it was tissue paper. Keicho screamed as the conn pod’s lights flickered and sparks showered down all around them. His pain echoed through Okuyasu’s mind just as his voice echoed off the walls of the pod.

Okuyasu swallowed a scream. “Bro!”

_“Focus!”_ Keicho managed through gritted teeth. “The void—use it—”

Okuyasu tapped frantically at the screen with hands that shook with shared pain. The shrill screeching of tearing metal and the burning scent of melting electronics permeated his senses. “Come on, come on…”

** —Void generator. Loading— **

“Come on!” Okuyasu shouted. “Do it faster!”

_Methodical._ Okuyasu made a fist and clenched his teeth. The kaiju was going to take their damn arm off if this thing didn’t hurry the hell up—

** —Void generator. Ready— **

“Finally!”

Okuyasu raised the jaeger’s right hand. Energy sparked from the two domes set into the center of its palm.

“Now!”

The two of them swung their arms in unison and hundreds of tons of steel followed. Okuyasu could feel the deep bass thrum of the void generator in his teeth. The sound pressed in on his eardrums until they felt like they might pop from the pressure, but he gritted his teeth and dug in.

The void generator was a seriously formidable piece of weaponry. The tech was still in the developmental stage, and the one The Hand wielded was the only prototype the PPDC had in service. Okuyasu didn’t understand exactly how it worked—he knew it had something to do with antimatter, though his eyes had kind of glazed over when the tech had tried to explain the details to him—but he didn’t need to. He just needed to make sure he didn’t fucking miss. 

He shouted they threw themselves at the kaiju. Just a little further— 

The generator’s energy field impacted its target. Green light flashed, blinding even through the oppressive greyness of the storm. The entire jaeger shook with the deafening bass rumble of the void and the subsequent rush and pop of air filling the vacuum it left behind. 

The kaiju shrieked and stumbled, clawing at the gaping fifty-foot wound the void generator had scraped into its chest. It lurched backward, choking, and collapsed into the sea.

“Yeah!” Okuyasu yelled triumphantly. “We got it, bro!”

“Don’t get careless,” Keicho hissed through gritted teeth. “I’m not sure it’s dead.”

Okuyasu looked at him incredulously. “Come on, bro. Didn’t you just see me damn near tear it in half?”

A prickle of annoyance from Keicho. He didn’t respond, focusing instead on the readout on the screens in front of them.

“See, no signature,” Okuyasu said. “I’m telling you, it’s—”

Something crashed into the jaeger, hard enough to make the two of them stumble. Okuyasu’s eyes widened. There was only one thing big enough to do something like that.

“Useless piece of junk!” Keicho yelled, slamming his fist against the console.

The kaiju hurled itself into them again. And again. And again. It used its entire weight with every blow, trying to topple the jaeger. It took everything the two of them had just to keep The Hand on its feet. Okuyasu leaned into the attacks, the muscles in his thighs screaming with complaint at the strain.

“Bro, let’s use the void again,” he grunted through clenched teeth. “It’s practically on top of us.”

Desperation. Keicho shook his head. “Generator’s still on cooldown. It needs another ninety seconds. We have to hold it until then. On three!”

“One,” the two of them counted together, raising the jaeger’s enormous fist. “Two!” They drew back their damaged left arm, ignoring the series of flashing warnings that popped up on the heads-up display. “Three!”

They swung.

They missed.

Suddenly, The Hand wasn’t mirroring their movements. Okuyasu’s neural link with Keicho felt ragged around the edges, like it was deteriorating for some reason. He glanced at the console; neither of them were out of alignment. The drift was strong.

So what the fuck was going on?

The answer came in the form of electricity surging through the console, frying the electronics and sending the display readouts haywire. Okuyasu and Keicho shouted in unison as it arced through their harnesses, frying their connection to the jaeger and searing their skin.

The kaiju.

It had to be the kaiju. There was no other explanation. Okuyasu could see electricity arcing away from them through the ocean. With immense effort, he tried to raise the jaeger’s right hand.

Nothing. They were effectively dead in the water. The only thing that hadn’t gone was the emergency lighting.

A crash, and the screech of teeth tearing into metal. The pod jolted sideways as the Nijimuras looked up in dawning horror.

“The hull!” Okuyasu yelled in disbelief. “Shit, it’s coming through the hull—”

The kaiju tore through the conn pod’s armored plating like it was opening a can of soup. Rain lashed in through the gap as its teeth gnashed at the opening, fighting to get at the contents within.

Keicho turned to look at Okuyasu, and a number of conflicting emotions flashed through him in a single instant. “Okuyasu, listen to me—”

The tempest raging outside was suddenly in the pod with them as the kaiju’s enormous claw tore through what was left of the steel. Before Okuyasu could process what was happening, it speared through Keicho’s chest, tearing him from his harness and pulling him out into the storm.

“Bro!” Okuyasu screamed even as the electricity continued to burn him. _“Keicho!”_

The drift was still strong. He could feel Keicho even though he was no longer in the pod, as clearly as if he were standing right next to him. He could feel his pain, tearing through his body as if it were being shredded to pieces. He could feel his fear—guttural, animal, desperate. Inside Okuyasu’s head, Keicho screamed—

And then there was nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading!!! I've been kicking this AU around in my head for a while and I'm beyond excited to be able to start posting it. I hope you enjoyed the first chapter and consider coming back for more! I'm trying to shoot for an update every other week :)
> 
> If you liked what you read, please do consider leaving me a comment! I'd love to hear your thoughts 💎💜💴


	2. Another Brick in the Wall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta read by the lovely [Mystic_Harley](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mystic_harley)!

Five years had passed since the Nijimura brothers’ last mission. 

Okuyasu had spent most of that time drifting along like a piece of flotsam caught in a rip tide, going wherever the current took him. Keicho had been the only family he had left. Without him, there was nothing anchoring him anywhere.

He had survived the fight with Chili Pepper, though how was anyone’s guess. No pilot should have been able to take the neural load of piloting a jaeger solo, let alone fight or get the thing back to shore. Okuyasu himself was pretty fuzzy on the details. Things kind of went black after Keicho was ripped from the conn pod—the only thing he really remembered was the pain, and the anger, and the deafening silence echoing back at him from the corners of his own mind. No matter how hard he searched for Keicho, he wasn’t there. He was gone. He was never coming back.

If the remains of the kaiju itself were anything to go by, Okuyasu had managed to activate the void generator one last time before it finished tearing the jaeger to shreds. Half its enormous cranium was simply gone, erased as if it had never been there in the first place. Electric blue blood and violet brain matter seeped from the gaping hole into the icy waters of the Alaskan gulf. Eventually, the sea birds and carrion eaters would pick its corpse clean. The kaiju never reached shore. Keicho Nijimura was the sole casualty of its attack.

When his wounds had healed, the corps gave Okuyasu a medal and an honorable discharge. They packed up his stuff and told him to go home.

The problem was that he didn’t really have one to go back to. He barely remembered Sendai. Alaska was only a posting. He could have gone anywhere in the world, but he couldn’t think of a single place he wanted to go. Keicho had always been the one who made the decisions, and Okuyasu had been more than happy to follow his lead. His bro might have been harsh or even cruel sometimes, but he’d never made any bad decisions when it came to the two of them. Okuyasu had trusted that as long as they were together, nothing bad was going to happen to him.

Now, damaged and alone for the first time in his life, he lacked direction. He briefly considered going back to school, but what would have been the point? He wasn’t cut out for learning. He felt no desire to travel. His only real marketable skill was beating the shit out of things, and it wasn’t like that was something people wanted to pay him for. 

Eventually, he ended up where all the other refuse that didn’t fit in anywhere else ended up.

The Wall of Life.

The idea was simple to the point of stupidity, but Okuyasu could kind of see the sense in it. The jaeger program was incredibly expensive to operate, and the mortality rate for pilots at the five-year mark was almost ninety-five percent. It was hard to convince people to enlist with those kinds of odds in play. Why should the world keep pouring money into the PPDC when the governments of the nations on the rim of the Pacific Ocean could construct anti-kaiju walls around their coastlines to defend against future attacks instead?

That was the idea, anyway. The wall’s construction along the Alaskan coastline had been ongoing for years now. The jaeger program remained operational for the time being, but from what Okuyasu had heard, the plan was to shut it down for good the moment the wall was completed. No more jaegers. No more pilots.

No more deaths.

Okuyasu might not have been cut out for higher education, but at the very least manual labor was something he could do. He traveled with the wall as it slowly grew, working shifts in exchange for ration cards.

It wasn’t a glamorous life. He wasn’t a pilot. He wasn’t a celebrity. He wasn’t even a ranger anymore. But it was decent work, and as long as he kept his head down and stayed busy he was…well, not _happy,_ but not miserable either. Things were manageable. He figured he’d see out the wall’s construction, at the very least. After that, he had no idea what the hell he was going to do.

At least, not until the attack on Sydney.

Okuyasu was working the top of the wall that day. It was risky business—people died up here all the time, either due to carelessness or to the wind knocking them off the pylons they were welding and sending them tumbling to their deaths fifteen stories below. The danger had never bothered Okuyasu, though. It was quiet up here, and the pay was better. He’d slipped and almost fallen once when he’d first started working, but had managed to catch hold of the girder with his stand at the last second. He figured that as long as he had his ability, he would be fine.

It wasn’t unusual for fights to break out on the wall. Long hours, grueling work, shitty food, and constantly bickering over assignments created an environment where someone got the shit kicked out of them pretty much daily. Okuyasu was used to it by now. He’d gotten in plenty of scraps himself, though he was usually the one who was doing the kicking.

Still, something about the agitated yells drifting up from the command center at the base of the wall that day was different. He had a bad feeling in his gut.

Okuyasu slid down the girder he’d been working on, gripping it with his stand so he wouldn’t shred his fingertips on the rough metal. When his boots hit packed earth, he jogged over to where everyone else was crowded, pushing his way through a sea of grungy coats and battered hard hats to see what was going on.

One glance at the TV told him everything he needed to know.

There was nothing quite like the sound of a kaiju’s roar. Even years later, it still sent a rush of adrenaline through Okuyasu’s body. The response was too deeply ingrained. There was still something in him that longed to fight, even after everything that had happened. He made a fist and gritted his teeth.

The thing was massive. Category four kaiju were the norm now. They crawled out of the breach with alarming regularity, some of them almost double the size of the monsters Okuyasu and Keicho had fought when they were rookie pilots. Frantic screams echoed from the TV’s speakers as a shaking camera captured it smashing through the Australian coastal wall like it was made of paper.

“What the fuck,” the guy standing next to Okuyasu muttered under his breath. “It went through the wall like…like it was nothing…”

“Why the hell are we building this thing?” someone yelled. Several other voices shouted out their agreement.

Okuyasu couldn’t hear the news announcer’s voice over the commotion. The camera wheeled around to reveal a jaeger blocking the kaiju’s path. It was a newer model, sleeker and more advanced by far than The Hand had been. It was painted in shades of purple and blue, with accents of gold that shone brightly in the Australian sun.

The jaeger launched itself at the kaiju. Shit, it was _fast._ J-tech had come a long way in the last five years, even with cutbacks. Even though Okuyasu knew better than anyone exactly how heavy all that machinery was, when the jaeger grabbed hold of the kaiju’s neck with one enormous hand and pulled back its other arm to strike, it looked almost effortless. 

Okuyasu folded his arms, watching the screen intently as its punch connected with the kaiju’s face. The jaeger’s arm was equipped with some kind of piston—its fist made contact with the kaiju’s face with a thud loud enough to make the TV’s speakers crackle and then rocketed back and forth, pummeling it with a barrage of vicious blows. There was some serious fucking force behind them, too. Okuyasu winced as the kaiju’s skin split and tore open.

By the time it was over, there was nothing but a bloody crater where the kaiju’s face had originally been. The jaeger released its grip on the kaiju’s neck, and it swayed and toppled to the ground with a thud that made all of the surrounding buildings shake. An enormous cloud of dust rose up around where it fell, thick enough to block out most of the sunlight.

“Damn,” Okuyasu muttered under his breath. That was an impressive fucking drop. It took more than just fancy machinery to fight like that. A jaeger was only as good as its pilots, after all. Whoever was plugged into that thing was a hell of a team.

“Everybody shut up!” someone yelled over the din of workers chattering amongst themselves, and silence fell over the crowd.

 _“—Star Platinum, piloted by Jotaro Kujo and Rohan Kishibe, had been decommissioned just two days ago following completion of the coastal wall here in Sydney,”_ the anchor said as the camera cut to a visual of the pilots standing beside their machine. One was a hulk of a man, easily six foot five, with short dark hair and a serious face. The other was a full head shorter and rail thin, with a shock of green hair swept back from his forehead and an expression that made it very clear that he thought he was better than everyone else. Both pilots were dressed in dark purple jumpsuits emblazoned with a gold star on the right shoulder.

Okuyasu shook his head. He’d heard of Jotaro Kujo. They’d even run a mission together back in the day, though Keicho had done most of the talking for the two of them on that one. He didn’t have any idea who the hell this Kishibe guy was, but they looked like an incredibly unlikely pair. Then again, drift compatibility was a fickle thing. When you finally found someone you clicked with, nothing else tended to matter.

 _“—lucky we were still here,”_ Kishibe was saying. _“If you ask me, the government never should have defunded the jaeger program in the first place. We’re the only thing standing between this city and complete destruction.”_

 _“Rohan.”_ Kujo said in a warning tone, laying a hand on his shoulder.

Kishibe shot him an incredulous look. _“I’m right, and you know it.”_

 _“But you’re relocating to Japan, even though you’re clearly still needed here?”_ the reporter asked, holding out her microphone.

 _“We have our orders. We can’t ignore them.”_ Kujo shrugged. _“We’ve been stationed in Sydney for three years now, but when the corps says move we move. Our marshals know how best to protect the rim. We follow their lead.”_

The rhythmic thrumming of helicopter blades drowned out the rest of the interview. Okuyasu turned to see a black hawk hovering just outside the construction site. He slung his gear over his shoulder, shaking his head, and turned on his heel.

Okuyasu might not have been the smartest guy, but it didn’t take a rocket scientist to connect the broadcast and the helicopter’s appearance. There was only one person who could have been aboard, and there was only one person he would have come to a place like this to find.

“Marshal,” he said with a nod as a tall man with a greying beard and hair disembarked the helicopter, ducking under the still-rotating blades.

“Okuyasu Nijimura,” Joseph Joestar greeted him in return. “I take it you’ve seen the news?”

Okuyasu folded his arms. “Saw it. Wasn’t exactly encouraging.”

“No, I’d say it wasn’t.” Marshal Joestar looked up at the half-constructed wall and shook his head in disbelief. “What the hell is a guy like you doing in a place like this?”

Okuyasu shrugged. “The best I can. Same as anybody else.”

“You already know why I’m here.”

“Yeah, I know.” Okuyasu sat on a girder and rubbed his hands together. “Look—”

“I’m going to cut straight to the point,” Joestar interrupted. “I need you. The world governments have voted to shut down the jaeger program. We have four machines left and just enough funding for one last mission. We managed to dig up an old Mark-3 for the occasion. It needs a pilot.”

Okuyasu shook his head. “Respectfully, Marshall? No way in hell.”

Joestar sighed. “I understand that what happened to your brother was—”

“No, you don’t.”

Okuyasu fiddled with the chain he wore around his neck. There hadn’t been enough of Keicho left for them to find his dog tags. He’d put one of his earrings on a chain instead, and he hadn’t taken it off since. It helped to have a piece of Keicho close to him. He could almost imagine sometimes that he was still there.

“I don’t expect you to get it,” he continued, tracing the arrowhead shape of the earring with his fingertips. “But after something like that…I just can’t, okay? I can’t have someone in my head. I was still connected to Keicho when he died. I don’t want to know what’s waiting for me in the drift. I’m done.”

“This is much bigger than you or me, Okuyasu,” Joestar said, shaking his head. “We’re in the endgame now. Judgment day is coming, and there’s a good chance none of us are going to survive it.” He glanced up at the half-completed wall, at the piles of rubble and the grease and dirt that stained Okuyasu’s clothes. “Where would you rather die? Here? Or in a jaeger?”

~~~~~~

_This is stupid._

Beyond stupid. It was a bad choice even by Okuyasu’s standards. But he’d gotten into the damn helicopter with Marshal Joestar despite his better judgment. Part of him wanted to go to Japan with him solely to lay eyes on The Hand one more time. He hadn’t seen the thing since they’d pulled him out of the wreckage on the Alaskan coastline almost twelve hours after Chili Pepper had destroyed the conn pod. It was hard to imagine that anyone could have put it back together with the condition it had been in.

He thought of getting back into the thing, of standing in the pod and looking at the empty harness that should have been Keicho’s. He gritted his teeth.

“We’re headed to the last holdout,” Joestar said over the incessant beat of the helicopter blades. “Japan. Base is just off the coast of a little town called Morioh. You might know it—it’s not too far from where you grew up, if I’m not mistaken.”

“Didn’t really grow up there,” Okuyasu said gruffly.

“Forgive me. I’d forgotten.”

“So what’s the big plan?” Okuyasu asked, leaning forward. “Might as well tell me, since you already got me on board.”

Joestar chuckled under his breath. “Since you asked so nicely, fine. We’re going after the breach.”

“Yeah, you wanna run that by me again?”

“I’m afraid we’re out of time and out of options.” Joestar sat back in his seat. “The plan is simple. We strap a nuclear bomb to the back of our fastest jaeger, take it to the breach, and detonate it. If we’re lucky—and I mean very, _very_ lucky, it should destabilize the rift enough to collapse it. Or at least that’s what the boys in the lab say.”

Okuyasu shook his head in disbelief.

Yeah. Beyond fucking stupid.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, it's been way longer than I would have liked since I last posted. During the past month I've been dealing with some health issues coupled with some Life stuff and had to put my writing on hold as a result. I'm back now, though! Thank you for being patient and I hope you liked the chapter <3


	3. The Shatterdome

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta read by [Mystic_Harley](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mystic_Harley)!

Rain pelted down with a vengeance as the black hawk came in for a landing off the coast of Japan.

The sound of the storm nearly drowned out the beating of the helicopter blades, which sent sheets of water rippling outward from the helipad as they touched down. The facility beneath was massive; millions of tons of reinforced steel set into the rock of the coastline like a nuclear bunker. Even with the decreased visibility of the storm, Okuyasu had been able to make out the shape of it, stark against the cliffs, from miles away.

“The Morioh Shatterdome,” Marshal Joestar explained unprompted as he unbuckled his harness and stood. “Our last line of defense. We’re a few miles outside of Sendai. Follow me.”

He disembarked the helicopter and Okuyasu followed, stepping out into the storm. For the first time, he felt grateful for his worn coveralls and steel-toed boots. The thick fabric was waterproofed and kept the rain from soaking him to the skin. He couldn’t say the same for his hair, but who the hell was he trying to impress? 

The deck around the helipad was a sea of people obscured by black umbrellas, rushing to and fro on what appeared to be urgent business. They made a hole for the marshal, who stepped through the chaos as easily as Moses parting the Red Sea.

One figure among the dozens stood still. Joestar made a beeline toward it, apparently trusting that Okuyasu would follow.

As they approached, the silhouette of the waiting figure resolved into that of a young man, dressed sharply and wearing expensive shoes that had no place on a rain-drenched deck like this, carefully holding his umbrella so as to protect the meticulously coiffed pompadour atop his head. He perked up at the sight of the Marshal.

“Welcome back, old man,” he said by way of greeting, tossing a closed umbrella to the Marshal, who caught and opened it, holding it slightly to the side so Okuyasu could huddle under it as well.

“Josuke. Glad to see the place didn’t collapse while I was gone. Anything major happen?”

“Put out some fires for you, but nothing crazy.” Josuke grinned. He tilted his head in Okuyasu’s direction. “This is him?”

Joestar nodded. “Okuyasu Nijimura, this is Josuke Higashikata. He’s the one in charge of restoring your jaeger.”

Okuyasu scuffed his filthy boots through the puddle he was standing in. “Nice to meet you.”

“Likewise.” Josuke raised an eyebrow and looked Okuyasu up and down, and then in perfect Japanese addressed the marshal. _”Is he really the best you could find?”_

Okuyasu snorted. _”Keep that shit up and you’ll find out.”_

Josuke winced.

“Looks can be deceiving,” Joestar said with a reproachful glance in Josuke’s direction. “Okuyasu is a damn good man, and he’s the last Mark-3 pilot we’ve got. There’s a reason he survived when all of the others didn’t.”

Okuyasu made a fist against his thigh. He didn’t need reminding of that fact. He carried it with him every day, along with Keicho’s earring on the chain around his neck.

Josuke bowed his head low. “Please forgive me.”

“It’s fine,” Okuyasu said gruffly.

“How about we all get out of this rain?” the Marshal suggested after a moment of uncomfortable silence. He strode off without waiting for an answer, leaving Okuyasu to either jog to catch up or be soaked by the rain.

The bulk of the Shatterdome sat beneath them. The facility was easily twenty stories deep, with the lowest levels situated well below where the waves broke against the closed launch bay doors. Okuyasu, Marshal Joestar, and Josuke squeezed into what little space was left available in the massive freight elevator, which was crammed to bursting with supply crates and what looked like kaiju specimens preserved in formaldehyde. The largest was easily the size of a man and ugly as sin. It looked like a tumor with an elephant trunk growing out of it. Okuyasu eyed it, unable to help making a sound of disgust under his breath.

“Look, but don’t touch,” a nasally voice said from behind him.

Okuyasu damn near jumped out of his skin. He hadn’t realized there was anyone else in the lift, but the dim fluorescents revealed at least two other people crammed in between the crates and tubes. The one who had spoken was a man who looked to be in his late twenties, with long purple hair that had obviously been sprayed within an inch of its life and an angular face. He looked profoundly out of place next to all the matte black crates of PDCC tech and rusted steel bulkheads. For one thing, his clothes would have looked more at home at some kind of rock festival. For another, he was absolutely covered in violently colorful tattoos. Okuyasu was pretty sure he recognized the silhouettes of several (in)famous kaiju inked onto his arms.

“What the hell is this thing?” he said, nodding at the tank.

“Piece of a kaiju brain,” the man answered with a manic glint in his eye. “Isn’t it awesome? Still sort of alive, too. It moves. Check it out!”

He tapped on the glass, and the brain segment’s tendrils jumped as if startled. The man grinned.

“Not everyone finds the things as enthralling as you, Akira,” the other stranger said coldly. “Need I remind you that we’re meant to be fighting them?”

“Yeah, yeah.” The man waved him off. “Just because you’re better with numbers than you are with people—”

Marshal Joestar cleared his throat. “Gentlemen.”

“Sorry, Marshal.”

“Meet our research team,” the marshal said with a nod at the two weirdos. “You’ve already had the pleasure of speaking with Dr. Akira Otoishi—he’s our xenobiologist. He knows more about kaiju than just about anyone else on earth. And this is Dr. Terunosuke Miyamoto, our resident physicist. If there’s anything you want to know about the breach, he’s your man. Gentlemen, this is Okuyasu Nijimura.”

“Charmed.” The second man the marshal had indicated looked much more the part than Otoishi did. He was dressed smartly, in a black suit and a long lab coat that swept the floor and was only buttoned near the top. His skin was dark, and his shoulder-length hair was a shade of silver that was completely incongruent with his apparent age. He had to be younger than Otoishi, at least.

Okuyasu squinted at the two of them, trying to size them up. They definitely didn’t look likely, but if the marshal trusted them…

“Are all of those tattoos kaiju?” he asked Otoishi, eyeing his exposed forearms.

“Hell yeah!” Otoishi rolled up his sleeves and held out his arms to show them off. “Check it out, I’ve got all the coolest ones. Aqua Necklace, Cheap Trick, Surface—”

“Red Hot Chili Pepper,” Okuyasu said quietly, spotting a familiar face.

“Good eye.” Otoishi grinned. “Yeah, he’s my favorite. You like him?”

“I killed it.” Okuyasu leveled his gaze at Otoishi. “Right after it killed my brother.”

The tension in the air was palpable. On either side of Okuyasu, the marshal and Josuke shifted uncomfortably. Okuyasu held Otoishi’s gaze until the lift slowed to a halt and the doors slid open. He turned to follow the marshal without another word.

“Sorry about him,” Josuke muttered as the two of them fell into step in the corridor behind Joestar, rubbing his neck. “He can be a real dumbass sometimes.”

Okuyasu shook his head. “Nah, it’s fine. Probably shouldn’t have scared him like that.”

Josuke snorted. “Miyamoto will probably thank you. Those two are always at each other’s throats.”

Okuyasu found himself warming up to Josuke. There was just something about him, something conspiratorial and a little cocky in his voice that made it easy to like him. They’d known each other for about ten minutes, but Okuyasu already had a feeling that the two of them were going to get along great. And he tended to go with whatever his gut told him to do.

The marshal stopped short, and the two of them almost collided with him. “Shit,” he groaned, flexing his left hand with a frustrated expression on his face. “The rain…damn. Josuke, I have to go deal with this. Can you introduce Okuyasu to the others and show him to his bunk?”

“You got it, old man.” Josuke grinned.

“Why does he let you call him that?” Okuyasu asked, unable to contain his curiosity, as the two of them continued down the increasingly crowded corridor. “Back in my day, it was all titles and ranks.”

“It still kind of is.” Josuke carefully patted his hair to make sure it was still in the right shape. “He can’t really demote me, though. I’m his nephew.”

“Didn’t know the marshal _had_ a family.”

“It’s…complicated.” Josuke bit his lip. “I’m not the only other Joestar in the Shatterdome, though. You know Jotaro Kujo? He’s the old man’s grandson.”

“Holy shit, you’re kidding! I had no idea.”

“It’s not something he advertises.” Josuke stuck his hands in his pockets.

“Wait, wouldn’t that make him your cousin or something?”

Josuke laughed. “Told you it was complicated.”

“Yeah, you weren’t kidding. So what—”

The rest of Okuyasu’s question was abruptly forgotten as the two of them passed through a massive set of pressurized steel doors and into the belly of the Shatterdome. The space was _huge_ , a cavernous area dug into the side of the cliff that was easily ten stories high and at least twice as wide. It was positively crammed with people in fatigues, scurrying by carrying clipboards or deep in conversation or operating forklifts loaded down with crates of supplies. Studded throughout the sea of people were jaegers, towering over all like colossuses.

Josuke grinned back at him. “Welcome to Morioh.”

Okuyasu did his best to wipe the shock off his face and followed Josuke into the crush of people, staring up wide-eyed at the nearest jaeger. He knew this one—he’d seen it recently. It was much more impressive up close than it had been on a busted up TV. The gold accents set into its purple plating gleamed as if freshly polished.

“Star Platinum,” Josuke said as they walked past its gargantuan foot. “Fastest jaeger we’ve got. The first and last of the Mark-5’s.”

“Yeah, I know.” Okuyasu stared up at it, taking it in. It was sleek and practically emanated power. It looked _fast._. Jaegers weren’t fast. They didn’t need to be. It took a lot of force to move that much metal, but they only had to be faster than the kaiju they took on. “Piloted by Kujo and that Kishibe guy, right? Saw them in action the other day. Not bad.”

“Rohan,” Josuke said with a barely-disguised note of disdain in his voice.

Okuyasu snorted. “Don’t like him?”

“He can be kind of…well, you’ll find out.” Josuke shrugged. “Jotaro likes him, so I guess that’s enough.”

“What about that one?” Okuyasu asked, gesturing up at another jaeger as the two of them ventured deeper into the Shatterdome.

This one definitely didn’t look fast. It looked old as shit, though that was a compliment in this business. J-tech didn’t last this long if the pilots weren’t insanely good. Old jaegers were heavy and slow, and it took an incredible amount of skill to compensate for those handicaps with the size of the kaiju that were coming through the breach these days.

The jaeger was painted in shades of hot pink and matte black, which contrasted with the bright gold of the conn pod windows. Despite its heft, it cut an almost feminine silhouette. A series of spires were set atop its head in the shape of a crown. Its arms were light in comparison to the rest of its construction, and each hand was equipped with a gleaming razor-sharp blade set into the side of the palm.

“Cinderella,” Josuke said. “Piloted by Yukako Yamagishi and Aya Tsuji. Yukako’s another one to steer clear of if you can. You never know how she can get when she’s in one of her moods…”

“Do all your pilots have bitchy streaks?”

“Yeah. You’ll fit right in.” Josuke nudged Okuyasu, grinning. “Cinderella’s a force to be reckoned with, though. The old man’s had them running defense on the Siberian perimeter for six years. Not a single breach.”

Okuyasu whistled under his breath. That was a long fucking time to keep it together in a machine that old. It was a Mark-2 at best. He had to respect that kind of ability.

The two of them continued through the Shatterdome, weaving through crowds of crewman and dodging their way around Cinderella’s platform as a team of technicians moved it slowly toward the bay that would become its home. Okuyasu caught a glimpse of the pilots as they passed, deep in hushed conversation as they walked behind their jaeger. They were both gorgeous—one tall, her golden hair swept back into a high ponytail, with a knowing smile on her face, and the other angry and dangerous-looking, with luxurious black curls that spilled down her shoulders. She glared at Okuyasu, having noticed him staring, and he quickly looked away. That had to be Yukako Yamagishi. Josuke’s warning suddenly made sense.

As they walked, the silhouette of a third jaeger towered over them. Okuyasu glanced up at it and abruptly stopped walking.

“Hey, Josuke, what the hell is that?”

Josuke followed his line of sight. “Highway Star. It’s kind of a special case.”

“Never seen a jaeger with four arms before. How the hell does that work?”

“Four pilots.”

Okuyasu stared back at Josuke incredulously. “Wanna run that by me again?”

“You heard me.” Josuke shrugged. “Yuya Fungami and his girlfriends, Yoshie, Akemi, and Reiko. Four pilots, four arms. You should see them in action. The thing is fast as hell.”

“I can’t believe the marshal would waste four pilots on one machine,” Okuyasu said, shaking his head. “What gives?”

“Yuya is the only one of them that’s a stand user.”

_What the fuck?_ Okuyasu raised his eyebrow.

“I don’t know,” Josuke said. “Normally only someone with stand potential can handle the drift. I guess having two more brains to share the load makes it possible. Their neural uplink is lightning fast. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Okuyasu had never seen anything like Highway Star before. It stood taller than any of the other jaegers they’d passed, and sported four arms on its torso. The chassis was painted in an ostentatious harlequin pattern of deep purple, black, and white. He shook his head. He had to see this thing in action. There was no way he could believe it before that.

“I’m sure you’ll get a chance to meet Yuya soon enough,” Josuke said, as if reading his mind. “He’s always around here somewhere. Just follow the smell of cologne and his oversized ego.” He gestured toward some stairs up the far wall of the space. “Come on, we’re almost there.”

Okuyasu followed Josuke up several flights of stairs and through a maze of bulkheads and hatch doors until at last they arrived in what looked like residential quarters. The crowd thinned considerably as they walked, until it was just the two of them and the distant sound of shouting and clanging metal.

Josuke pointed at a door on the left side of the hall. “That’s you. You’re right across from me—talk about great luck.” He grinned. “Mess starts serving dinner at 1800. Just let me know if you need anything before then.”

“Thanks,” Okuyasu said with a nod. He paused, touching the handle on his door. “Hey, Josuke?”

“Hm?”

“Why aren’t you a pilot?”

Josuke laughed nervously. “What do you mean?”

“I dunno. I guess I just…there’s like this gleam in your eye when you talk about the jaegers, y’know? I might not be the smartest guy but even I can tell you’re dying to suit up.”

Josuke bit his lip. “It’s…It’s complicated.”

“Oh yeah?” Okuyasu leaned against the door. “What’s your simulator score?”

A barely-concealed flash of pride. “Fifty-two drops, fifty-two kills.”

_“Damn.”_ Okuyasu shook his head. “Well, with a score like that, if you’re not suiting up there must be a damn good reason.”

“Something like that.” There was a hardness in the set of Josuke’s jaw that hadn’t been there a minute ago. “Hey listen, I have some things I need to finish up—”

“I get it,” Okuyasu said, throwing up his hands in a placating gesture. “It’s fine. Go. I’ll see you around.”

“Yeah…see you around, Okuyasu.”

The heavy door to Okuyasu’s quarters fell shut with a metallic thunk behind him. He dropped his bag on the cot with a sigh.

The room was a damn sight better than anywhere else he’d slept in the last five years. The cots at the construction site moved with the wall. It was common practice to just pick a bunk and fall into it at the end of a shift. It had been years since Okuyasu had a bed he could call his own, let alone an entire room. It didn’t matter that it was a shoebox. It had a dresser, a desk, and even a rudimentary display set into one wall. He hadn’t had anything like this since…

Well, since Alaska.

The chain around his neck was suddenly incredibly heavy. He pulled it out of his shirt, running his fingers along the smooth metal edges of the arrow.

“I know you would have wanted me to do this, bro,” he said quietly. “I’m…I’ll try to make you proud. I’ll be more careful this time. I promise.”

He let the charm fall and swallowed against the lump in his throat. Fuck, he’d always been an easy crier. Keicho had always hated that about him, slapping him upside the head and telling him to stop acting like a baby. He fought it back, pushed the feelings that were welling up back down and locked them up. He had to do this. He had to. For Keicho. To prove that he was good enough.

Okuyasu dug in his bag until his fingers found the sheaf of photographs, bound carefully in a rubber band to keep them safe. One by one, he pulled them out and taped them to the wall. Sendai. Their family home. His grandparents, though he barely remembered them. The Hand, fresh off the assembly line. A younger Marshal Joestar standing proudly behind Okuyasu’s cohort the day they’d graduated from training. His entire life, summed up in a series of battered pictures.

Two photographs he saved and hung in a place of honor, just to the side of the door frame. One was a family portrait: his parents, a four-year-old Keicho, and himself as a baby. He smiled to himself, softly, tracing the soft smile on his mother’s face.

The other was a candid of him and his brother, suited up for battle and clearly arguing with each other over something stupid. He couldn’t remember who had taken it—maybe it was Koichi?—but it was the only photo of Keicho he had that really captured his spirit. The way the annoyance on his face was underlaid with something like affection as the two of them bickered back and forth.

Okuyasu taped it up carefully above the family photo, where he would see it every time he left the room. He stepped back and looked around. The metal cube already felt a lot more like home.

With an exhausted sigh and a wistful glance at the waiting cot, which was looking more and more appealing by the second, he started stripping out of his grease-stained coveralls and went off in search of a hot shower.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Josuke is finally heeeereeeeeee ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) I'm so happy


End file.
